T-Mobile plans to gain ground in the Midwest as it buys up the remaining interest of Iowa Wireless from Aureon.
Deal terms were not disclosed, but T-Mobile will have full ownership of the regional wireless provider, which does business as iWireless.
iWireless serves about 75,000 customers in Iowa, western Illinois, and eastern Nebraska, with 103 full service retail stores and authorized dealers.
“We’re taking T-Mobile to every corner of the country and this deal shows our commitment to expanding in the heart of America,” T-Mobile CEO John Legere commented in a statement.
The operator indicated it will expand its LTE coverage in Iowa this year, as well as build out its newly acquired 600 MHz spectrum in the future.
In August, T-Mobile’s first 600 MHz sites went live in Cheyenne, Wyo., using Nokia equipment. The carrier has also said additional 600 MHz deployments are slated for northwestern Oregon, western Texas, southwestern Kansas, the Oklahoma panhandle, western North Dakota, Maine, coastal North Carolina, central Pennsylvania, central Virginia, and eastern Washington by the end of 2017.
With these new rollouts, T-Mobile anticipates expanding its LTE coverage to 6 million more people by the end of the year, for a total of 321 million people.
The carrier also plans to broaden its distribution footprint, opening 1,500 T-Mobile stores, and 1,500 MetroPCS stores. Overall, T-Mobile said it expects to have 17,000 branded locations across the United States by the end of the year.
